“Give it to me, father, and I will not fail to wear it.”
“My daughter,” said the good father, “it will be of no avail from your
own hand. Mine, from which you shall receive absolution, must first bind
it upon you; then shall you be absolved of all your sins.”
The maiden replied, weeping, that she would not suffer it.
“What?” said the confessor. “Are you a heretic, that you refuse the
penances which God and our holy mother Church have ordained?”
“I employ confession,” said the maiden, “as the Church commands, and I
am very willing to receive absolution and do penance. But I will not be
touched by your hands, and I refuse this mode of penance.”
“Then,” said the confessor, “I cannot give you absolution.”
The maiden rose from before him greatly troubled in conscience, for,
being very young, she feared lest she had done wrong in thus refusing to
obey the worthy father.
When mass was over and the Countess of Aiguemont had received the
“Corpus Domini,” her lady of honour, desiring to follow her, asked her
daughter whether she was ready. The maiden, weeping, replied that she
was not shriven.
“Then what were you doing so long with the preacher?” asked her mother.
“Nothing,” said the maiden, “for, as I refused the penance that he laid
upon me, he on his part refused me absolution.”
Making prudent inquiry, the mother learnt the extraordinary penance that
the good father had chosen for her daughter; and then, having caused her
to be confessed by another, they received the sacrament together. When
the Countess was come back from the church, the lady of honour made
complaint to her of the preacher, whereupon the Countess was the
more surprised and grieved, since she had thought so well of him.
Nevertheless, despite her anger, she could not but feel very much
inclined to laugh at the unwonted nature of the penance.
Still her laughter did not prevent her from having the friar taken and
beaten in her kitchen, where he was brought by the strokes of the rod
to confess the truth; and then she sent him bound hand and foot to his
Warden, begging the latter for the future to commission more virtuous
men to preach the Word of God.
“Consider, ladies, if the monks be not afraid to display their
wantonness in so illustrious a house, what may they not do in the
poor places where they commonly make their collections, and where
opportunities are so readily offered to them, that it is a miracle if
they are quit of them without scandal. And this, ladies, leads me to beg
of you to change your ill opinion into compassion, remembering that
he (3) who blinds the Grey Friars is not sparing of the ladies when he
finds an opportunity.”